


if we still have time (we might still get by)

by kbs_was_here



Series: on a watch with no hands [1]
Category: Captain Marvel (2019)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Let my moms marry, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 11:57:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18072992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kbs_was_here/pseuds/kbs_was_here
Summary: The night before the big trip back to space in a craft not designed for the journey AKA that time Carol and Maria had a midnight chat and were obviously crazy about each other AKA the author just needed to process a lot of feelings.





	if we still have time (we might still get by)

Carol couldn't sleep.

Carol couldn't really remember the last time she slept. Probably back on Hala if she wasn't counting the time she briefly drifted off on the car ride through the desert with Fury.

But now she was in a bed, head on a pillow, the calm of Louisiana outside the spare room window. She tired to imagine the hum of the bayou bugs as the sound of the city she'd grown used to on what she now realized was a foreign planet. Each surfacing memory of her time on C-53 felt like it nudged her away from her life among the Kree.

It's a welcome shift, Carol thought, tossing herself from her side onto her back, hands flexing and crackling under the sheet, a light glow emitting briefly until she took a breath and relaxed. The air here was thick, though something buried in the back of her mind told her it wasn't the overall planet itself. Rosamond had been dry and arid, even her short term memory held the recent events of the motorcycle ride through the desert. But even deeper than that, there was more. Life on the base, not that far from Pancho's, was full of sunny open skies.

Maria, for whatever reason, had chosen to relocate in Louisiana. Or maybe she'd been reassigned. They hadn't talked about much beyond all the superpowers and alien wars.

The house was nice, though. Bigger than the tiny government issue cracker-boxes they'd been issued back at the air force base. Here there was plenty of room for all of Monica's big ideas, Maria's airy outdoor workspace, and places for multiple unexpected guests to sleep with Mr. and Mrs. Rambeau set up in the official guest room, Carol in the room that appeared to be the spillover space for Monica’s imagination (given the colorful sketches on the walls), and Fury on the couch (and Goose probably on Fury). The Skrulls were bunking on the ship, though Carol wasn't even sure if they slept.

She wondered if maybe she'd evolved beyond sleep. Or maybe it was just that a lifetime of memories being jogged in her brain left all her synapses firing. Whatever was happening, she wasn't going to drift off any time soon. She flipped the covers back and dropped her bare feet to the floor. The black Bon Jovi t-shirt and gray USAF sweatpants were apparently her own, though she was still settling into the feeling of C-53's simple fabrics that didn't calculate, transmit, or regulate anything.

With a twist, she clicked on the small table lamp next to the bed and immediately settled her gaze on the box Monica had brought to her. It was packed with photos, books, and other items that had meant something to her before she'd left the planet six years ago. The pictures were truly the best memory fuel, but for as much as she couldn't sleep, she was feeling somewhat overloaded on that front. So, she pushed the large envelope aside to examine the small stack of paperbacks. The spines were cracked, so she must have read them. The titles tugged lightly on her mind: _Patriot Games_. _Misery_. Familiar, but she couldn't recall anything about the plot of either. The Beryl Markham memoir, however, evoked a bit more. Carol sensed something like inspiration when she picked it up. Though, it was right there on the cover that this woman was a famous aviator, so maybe it was obvious why it resonated.

Beyond the books were... tapes? It was weird, actually, how certain words knew when to appear. The way things worked on Hala were so different than life on C-53, particularly in regard to technology, but here she was pulling open the clear plastic case and sliding the tape into the walkman that she immediately retrieved from the corner of the box. With the headphones over her ears, she pressed the PLAY button. Nothing. She slid open the battery compartment, but it wasn't empty. The batteries inside were dead. She tapped them, blue light arcing from her fingertips, and within a moment, there was music playing through the foam padding against her ears.

She heard a riff that was unmistakable. Six years had nothing on the opening guitar strains to Barracuda. Carol felt herself grinning widely and didn't care, she was alone, anyway. And this song fucking rocked.

On the floor, she sat with her back against the bed and flipped the cassette case over in her hand. The plastic was worn, scuffed with what looked like years of use. A flash of it, along with others like it stuffed into the glove box of the Mustang. Her car. She immediately jumped into a memory of the engine, her own arms elbow deep in grease as she made the tweaks to keep it in top shape for those morning races to the base.

Races like the one she'd definitely not cheated in on that morning, her last one here on this planet.

She pulled the headphones down, letting them hang around her neck with Heart still jamming away, now tinny and distanced. Despite Monica’s claim to have been the one to keep everything, Maria had not only held on to these things, she'd packed them and brought them with her across the country. And now they sat in a cardboard box at Carol's feet, holding individual keys to unlock random memories. Like a grab bag. What’s next? The best birthday ever? A near-death experience? Who knew?

Whatever her life with Maria, it looked like one full of joy and friendship and love. Though, she hadn't needed the tapes and photos to tell her that last one. She could tell the second Maria had turned away from the workbench to look at her for the first time in years that there was history, something more than just a friend lost in a tragic accident. And that feeling was expanded infinitely when Maria explained the nature of their relationship even further, leaving the two of them clinging to each other out in the yard. The feeling was there, but Carol still didn't know the specifics.

It helped when Monica filled her in on what felt like a million tiny details. They'd shared life together, the three of them. This was her family, she at least knew that much.

There was a soft knock on the door. "Come in."

Carol has half expecting Fury with some piece of intelligence about the next day's plan. Instead, it was Maria. In her hand she held two bottles of beer.

"Can't sleep either, huh?" she asked as she held one of the icy bottles to Carol.

"Nope." Carol punched the STOP button on the tape player, then took the beer. The cold condensation against her palm brought forward more moments: Pancho's, backyard parties, dinner at Maria's tiny kitchen table.

"Figured you could use a drink. I know I sure as hell need one." Maria dropped down onto the floor next to Carol, the both of them leaning back against the bed.

"It's just another flight."

"Yeah, to space. Into combat. With aliens."

"Right. No big deal." She tapped her bottle against Maria's in a toast, the clink drawing forward more memories, but none as clear and distinct as the one that came when she took a sip.

* * *

 

_1985\. It was their usual beer and pizza night, Miami Vice had just ended. Monica was still young enough to be sound asleep in the crib tucked in the corner of Maria's bedroom._

_Carol had her feet propped up on the coffee table in the living room. The pizza was long gone, but there were still two cans of Budweiser hooked into the plastic rings of the former six-pack sitting on the side table next to Carol._

_"You gonna hand me one of those or what?" Maria asked from her side of the couch._

_"You can't reach from there?"_

_"Unlike you, I'm not rude."_

"I'm rude?"

_"You're the one who ate more than her half of the pizza."_

_"You said you weren't that hungry!"_

_"Still my half."_

_Carol lifted the beer by the plastic rings and dangled them in front of Maria. "Fine, here." But as Maria reached for them, Carol pulled back._

_"You are not fucking with me right now."_

_"Looks like I am."_

_This wasn't new, they had a tendency to banter and argue. Being two of the few women in the test flight training program meant they dealt with more than their fair share of criticism (that was the polite word for what Carol preferred to call "fucking bullshit" from their male counterparts). For whatever reason, that translated to them taunting each other and testing the other's limits on a regular basis._

_Lately, though, it didn't feel as much like peer-to-peer prodding as it did... flirting?_

_"You just need to realize that, because you ate five-eighths of the pizza, I'm now entitled to five-eighths of the beer."_

_"Well, it's a six pack, you want to do the math on that?"_

_Without missing a beat, Maria calculated out loud, "Well, it's twelve ounces a can, which is seventy-two ounces total, so forty-five ounces of that is five-eighths of the six pack. Meaning," Maria reached again for the hand that still gripped the plastic loops. "One and three-quarters of the remaining cans of beer are mine."_

_"Do I at least get to drink my quarter of a can first?"_

_"That depends."_

_"On?"_

_"Whether or not you're going to do what it is I know you're thinking about, right now."_

_Carol's eyebrow lifted. Maria always had a way of knowing what she was up to. It was scary, at times. But right now it was reassuring. She allowed the plastic to slip from her fingers, transferring the beer to Maria's waiting hand. Her shoulders squared a bit as she sat up and gently rested her now-free hand on the back of Maria's neck before leaning in and kissing her._

_Before this moment, in a move that was somewhat unlike her usual impulsive approach to life--_

_\--like the time she’d decked some crusty old biker for calling Maria a “frigid bitch” when she’d turned down his offer to buy her a drink without considering just how many of his friends were in the same bar so they had to make a quick exit and how it was a good thing she knew the back roads with her eyes closed so she was able to lose them by cutting through the desert--_

_\--or the time she jumped a dirt bike over a small ravine on a dare from one of the guys on the base (she made the jump but not so much the landing) and sprained her ankle so badly it swelled up three times its regular size which maybe wouldn't have happened if she'd stopped and rested it like Maria told her to--_

_\--and then there was--_

_\--hold on, back to kissing Maria--_

_\--Carol had weighed the risk involved in wanting to make a move like this. Sure, it could affect their friendship, though she knew that if Maria wasn't interested, she'd say so, probably tease her about it for a while, and then that would be it. Carol made stupid decisions all the time. That was part of her charm. Though Maria tended to phrase it as "being a pain in the ass." The heavier consequence would be if Maria was interested, if they did actually want to be together beyond friendship, to have a relationship. The military wasn't too keen on same-sex fraternization, which, despite Carol's love of her career in the United States Air Force, was an area where she sincerely felt it could go fuck itself._

_In either case, she had to go for it, to take the chance. What was life if not the opportunity to repeatedly test the limits that surrounded her?_

_There was a thump as the beer cans fell onto the table, then Maria's hand was in Carol's hair. It definitely looked like this was a case of Option B and, regardless of what that meant their life would have to look like on the outside, Carol immediately decided it was totally worth it._

_Especially when her back hit the armrest of the couch and Maria showed no sign of letting up on this make-out session anytime soon._

* * *

 

"Everything okay in there?" Maria nudged at Carol with her shoulder, bringing her back to the present.

"Yeah, I just..."

"Remembered something."

"We..."

"Either your crazy new superpowers are making your cheeks glow or you're blushing.”

Carol was, in fact blushing, though she wasn't normally one to be shy about anything, really. But this was so much, so fast. So much of her past was so new to her in the moment.

She pulled the headphones off and set the Walkman down. "We really made it work, didn't we?" she asked, thinking about how involved she’d clearly been in not just Maria’s life, but also in Monica’s. The kid adored her. And, truthfully, Carol adored her right back. She felt that inside, just as much as she did her feelings for Maria. They were there, she just didn’t know how everything fit together.

"Since when have you ever done something as bare minimum as making it work? In the time we had together, you never let me second guess your love for me or that little girl. You have always led with your heart. And disappearing into some far away galaxy hasn't changed that."

"You know, when I climbed into that cockpit that day, I never thought I'd end up--"

"Like anyone could have predicted this."

"I was so far away for so long and I didn't have any idea what I’d been taken away from. I still don't really know what's missing."

"Then we'll put it all back, piece-by-piece if we have to."

It was quiet while Carol picked at the label on bottle. The memories she'd uncovered left her with a painfully strong desire to reintegrate into life with the Rambeaus. But, what if there was something she was missing? What if Maria had spent the last six years moving on? What if there was something waiting to pop up once she was settled and comfortable back here on C-53?

"It's not like you to think so hard,” said Maria.

"I think plenty."

"Yeah, when you're trying to get yourself out of trouble."

Carol decided the only way to know was to ask, "Is this where you want me?"

"There's a lot of destinations that question could lead to."

"I mean here, in Louisiana. With you and Monica."

"Do you... not want to be here with us?"

"I'm just saying I'm not expecting you to have waited for me all this time."

"Oh, I moved on."

Carol slumped. “Oh.”

"After the investigation, I picked up and left California with my child. I resettled a couple thousand miles away and busied myself with civilian work, private charter flights, safe stuff. I wasn't about to let Monica lose both of us. So yes, I moved on. From sitting around, staring out at that damn desert, knowing you were strong enough to have possibly survived but also knowing it was foolish to think about it for too long. I didn't wait for you." She pulled at Carol's chin with her fingertips, urging her to look at her. "Because I knew, if the impossible was possible, then you'd find me."

"And here I am.” Carol offered a weak shrug. “Fire fists and all."

"Okay, so it's not really a scenario I'd imagined."

That pulled Carol back up and she narrowed her eyes, curious. "And just what did you imagine?"

Maria took a moment to find the right words, taking a drink from her beer as she settled on the anwer. "Nothing that compared to you showing up looking sexy as hell in a t-shirt and jeans, telling me you came from outer space."

Amused, Carol asked, "Sexy, huh? Tell me more about that."

"Looks like someone hasn't forgotten she likes her ego stroked." Maria nudged at Carol's leg with her knee.

Carol's hand slid over Maria's knee and rested there. "Your parents are right downstairs," she leaned against the woman beside her, "and here you are talking dirty to me." She took another swing of her drink.

"Tell you what," Maria dipped her head down closer to Carol's ear, speaking low, "if we all get back on the ground in one piece tomorrow, I'll let you know what dirty talking sounds like."

Carol nearly choked. "Guess I can't argue with that," she said between coughs.

Maria laced her fingers with Carol's and tugged on her hand. "You want to come to bed with me?"

"Uh..."

"To sleep, perv. We have a flight in the morning."

"Oh, do we? I totally forgot."

"That lost memory shit is only going to get you so far. And don't you go shocking me in the night."

"This is kind of embarrassing, but I haven't slept next to anyone since I've had this energy thing."

"Did you just say that you're embarrassed you weren't sleeping around on me?"

"It's not like I knew!"

"You only get, like, a dozen more of those."

"That one wasn't even serious." Carol allowed herself to be pulled up. "The good news is that I'm pretty sure you won't bitch about my cold feet, anymore."

"Hey, look. You remembered something." Maria led them down the hall.

“I also remember that you snore.”

“Shush, you’ll wake everyone up.”

“Oh, and the snoring won’t?”

“You can go right back in there and spend the night alone, if you want.”

That night, Carol slept soundly, one arm slung over Maria. Before she finally drifted off, her mind wandered into the past, to many nights, a lot like this one, feeling cozy and loved and ready for anything.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from lyrics to "Crazy On You" by Heart.
> 
> Oh, also this fic is dedicated to Heather Hogan of Autostraddle because she's rad.


End file.
